Now, in our backyard, we have experienced the second-worst school shooting in American history.

So we look for answers. Any answers. Hopefully a simple answer. But the answer is both simple and it’s not. The continuing and polarizing debate that seeks to attribute gun violence to either mental health conditions or access to guns is not an either-or argument. It’s both-and, but at the same time it’s much more attributable to one area than the other.

Let’s look at the evidence. It’s overwhelming. A significant science-based study (“Mental illness and reduction of gun violence and suicide: bringing epidemiologic research to policy”) has demonstrated that even if we eliminated all mental health conditions in the United States, we would see only a 4 percent reduction in gun violence. And, while it is true that people with severe mental health conditions have a slightly higher incidence of violent behavior, the frequencies are still very small. Furthermore, the vast majority of people with serious mental health conditions are non-violent. We also know that better predictors of violence are whether someone comes from a history of poverty and violence, has an addiction, and has been prone to domestic violence.

Thousands of people hugged each other and cried as they remembered the 17 victims of the recent shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

Thousands of people hugged each other and cried as they remembered the 17 victims of the recent shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

Gun violence is 20 times more prevalent in the United States than in other developed nations. And we have the highest number of guns per 100 people — 88 — that’s compared to 31 in Canada, 6 in Britain, and 15 in Australia. But our mental health spending is very similar. We spend around 7 percent GDP on mental health and most other nations spend between 6 percent and 8 percent. And rates of mental health professionals per capita is also very similar to Western European countries and other developed nations. Essentially, the United States mental health system is not appreciably better or worse than the rest of high-resource countries.

Now with all this said, we need to do a better job at ensuring all mental health systems are easy to access and easy to use. It’s long past time to realize mental health is health, and consequently funding and priorities should be the same. But this is a separate problem from eliminating gun violence. Even with a fully-funded mental health system that provides immediate and simple access, there will always be a subset of people that will not engage for a number of reasons.

On average, every day in America, 96 people are killed with guns. This simply does not have to be. The rest of the world has figured this out. The AR-15 used in our tragedy was legally purchased by an 19-year-old, who could not legally purchase a beer. This weapon is specifically designed for killing as many as possible, as fast as possible. The slaying of little children in Sandy Hook did nothing. And now us.

The one big thing we can do right now, is substantially reduce the number of guns overall, and eliminate any access to semi-automatic and automatic weapons. This strategy has proven to reduce gun related deaths, over and over again.

This has become very personal for all of us. My daughters are alumni of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. I’ve lived in the Coral Springs/Parkland community for 25 years. My heart is broken — but my spirit and drive are not. We all need to carry on and elect leadership that can get this done.

A British journalist posted on twitter after the horror in Newtown; “In retrospect, Sandy Hook marked the end of the United States gun control debate; once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.”